Brazil loosens restrictions on Amazon land use

Brazil's president Dilma Rousseff has promised to veto a provision for an amnesty from harsh fines on farms that clear more trees than legally allowed. Photograph: Evaristo Sa/AFP/Getty Images

Brazil's lower house has passed legislation that would loosen restrictions on how small farmers use their land in the Amazon forest.

Environmentalists still fear the revision bill would bring increased deforestation, but operators of small-scale farms and ranches defend the measure as a way to let them produce to full capacity and boost Brazil's food output.

The bill, which had been debated off and on in the House of Deputies for nearly two years, easily passed on Tuesday night by 410 votes to 63, but is expected to face a tougher fight when it goes before the Senate. The bill would let farmers and ranchers with smallholdings to work land closer to river banks and to use hilltops. It also provides for an amnesty from harsh fines on farms and ranches of any size that cleared more tree cover than legally allowed, but only for cutting before July 2008. President Dilma Rousseff has promised to veto that provision. While they would be freed from penalties already levied, larger landholders would still have to replant land that they cleared beyond legal limits or buy and preserve the same amount of forested land elsewhere to make up for what they cut. In the Amazon, 80% of property is supposed to remain untouched forest. Elsewhere in Brazil, it ranges from 35% to 20%, depending on the area. Smaller farmers those with less than 400 hectares (990 acres) of land would not have to replant forest land cleared before July 2008, but would still have to plant trees in areas illegally felled since then. Legislative leaders dropped a provision that environmentalists feared most which would have removed all limits on preserving trees for small farmers and ranchers. Environmentalists warn that the changes that remain in the legislation would lead to flooding, silty rivers and erosion and say the full package will inflict severe damage on the rainforest, an area the size of the US west of the Mississippi river that absorbs the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. About 20% of the Brazilian rainforest has already been destroyed, and 75% of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions are estimated to come from forest clearing as vegetation burns and felled trees rot. Farmers, though, feel betrayed by the tough environmental rules imposed in the late 1990s. Two decades earlier, Brazil's military dictatorship, seeking to speed development, had encouraged them to enter the Amazon, offering them free land if they would clear up to 50% of their land of trees. Environmentalists and farmers alike say Brazil's government is unable to adequately patrol the vast and inhospitable Amazon region to enforce the laws in any consistent manner. Congressman Aldo Rebelo, who introduced the measure, said the law makes it impossible for farmers to make a living and almost no one complies with it. "The environmental ministers are only looking at the environmental side, not mentioning any concern about that fact that almost 100% of farmers are illegal," he said. "Our concern is with the environment, but also with the situation of the farmers in our country." Brazil's agricultural industry says the environmental laws keep the nation from meeting its economic potential. The country is the world's second larger producer of agricultural products while using just a third of its arable land, and farmers say they could easily surpass the US if they were not shackled by the laws. Backers say the amnesty for tree-cutting fines is justified because many farmers cleared land well before the tighter limits were imposed, but environmentalists said it sets a bad precedent. "The proposed amnesty upholds a long tradition in Brazil of legalising the illegal. People believe they can deforest illegally because sooner or later all will be forgiven," said Philip Fearnside of the government's National Institute for Amazon Research. Satellite images from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research indicated deforestation in the Amazon last year dropped to its slowest pace in 22 years. Between August 2009 and July 2010 6,450 sq km (2,490 sq miles) of forest were lost, a 14% drop from the year before, and the least since 1988 when the agency began recording the destruction. However, the government last week announced that 590 sq km of deforestation were recorded in March and April, nearly six times more than in the same period last year.